A very honest and open book into the world of fashion. When I read it, it felt like I was there, it was so descriptive. This is an industry that I had always wanted to work in since I was little, but after reading this, I am so glad I didn’t. Dressmaking has remained my hobby until this day, but if I had worked at any of these places mentioned, I wouldn’t have had the same joy all these years.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

The world of fashion is universally acknowledged as something glamorous and mostly unattainable. To be able to wear newly designed clothes, walk the runway or cooperate with the designers is a dream of many. However, there is a price that is paid for life in this dreamland. Unpaid hours of work for people who cannot be bothered to learn your name even after months and expect you to be happy to even be there. So many would kill for the opportunity, right? This book shows the part of working in the fashion industry that usually stays hidden in order to protect the exclusivity and support the magic it so desperately tries to preserve. Created from a point of view of a person who tried it for herself in order to report it as believably as possible. And it is not always a nice thing to read about yet important to finish. Because maybe publishing stories like those that are present in this book can help to bring fair conditions for people who want to work in this beautiful world and are able to afford at least a bit of the glamour they represent.
I have enjoyed this book, especially the variety of different topics it discusses. I think this book is great for everyone who is even remotely interested in fashion. I guarantee that you will read your monthly fashion magazines with a much deeper understanding.

As I move forward and intake images of the dream of fashion I'll be wondering how much I'm participating in this creation of fantasy that drives such an exploitative circuit of production. Also, the conversation on the nature of labor was so wild and spot-on to me.

"The problem is that if you want to make beautiful things you have to work with psychopaths."

This pithy comment by one of her interviewees pretty much sums up anthropologist Giulia Mensitieri's deep dive into the fashion industry. It is an industry where exploitation of workers is rife, and the more involved that you are in making fashion, the more exploited you are.

Mensitieri explains that haute couture is essentially a loss-leading ad campaign to get people who could never afford to buy such clothing to spend big money on more affordable items such as ties, handbags and so on. The sellers of these items, who generate most of the profits for the fashion houses, get paid minimum wages which are supplemented by discount vouchers for the label's goods, which they still have to save up to buy.

The prevailing ethos of the industry is one of "you are lucky to be here, why should you expect to be paid?". Mensitieri talks of "symbolic capital" and "economic capital". The former is the opportunity to work with leading designers or magazines such as vogue, or to participate in Paris Fashion Week. These opportunities are so sought-after that people get paid almost nothing for the chance to do them. They are driven to seek "economic capital" by doing work for lower-end designers and publications. The snag is that the more exposure they get doing "economic capital", the less attractive they are to the haute cuisine part of the business, destroying any aspirations of reaching the top of their profession. This is a dilemma which fashion workers buy into, against their own interests, sentencing most of them to a hand-to-mouth existence in search of a dream.

An eye opening truly dark look at those who work in fashion,The assistants designers models all those who live in this e haunting environment.All the gorgeous clothes objects all the beauty.The reality is exhausting hours tense environment and for most low pay.Well written fascinating expose of a world that most of us only see the glitz.#netgalley#bloomsburyacademic

I am an advocate for slow fashion and my business is slow fashion but I love clothes and am interested in the history of fashion. I thought I would really enjoy this book, but if I'm honest it's far too academic for me. I finished it, but it was hard work. The premise was fascinating, some of the material was really interesting but it was the style of the book that I found hard. It's clearly a piece of academic writing and as such it wasn't really something I could immerse myself in. I found it all too easy to put it down. For me, as a lay person there was too much academic language and far too many footnotes. If I was using this for research or work purposes no doubt it would be perfect, but it really wasn't for me. I was intrigued to learn about the world of haute couture, because when you read about fast fashion and fashion as a polluter or as a driver of commerce it tends to focus on high street brands and pile em high shops rather than the luxury end of the market. I learned a lot.

This book gives a frightful look into the world of Haute Couture/high fashion in Paris and Brussels. Only the actual designers make money. The industry has accepted that people work insane hours for free or for a pittance. I thought the interviews were very interesting in the book and enlightening. Fashion is deemed a "creative" sector and thus asks insane things from the people working in that sector. I especially found the moments from her internship enlightening.
Sometimes the book delved a bit too deep in explaining semantics of a term or going fully philosophical on it. While I understand the focus on higher end fashion, I really did expect at least a chapter on how the larger fashion industry is truly horrible.
It opened my eyes, and has made me even more sad about the fashion industry. The book was well researched and interesting.
If anyone from the fashion industry reads this - Please take a look at how this can be permanently changed for the better.